STATE LOANS 157 



orthodoxy of laissez /aire. So far from entertaining 

 any prima facie objection to the use of the resources 

 of the State for the development of private enterprise, 

 the Commissioners appear to have been actuated by a 

 passionate prepossession in favour of State advances. 

 They are not content to wait until the cultivator shall 

 approach the State with a demand for the loan of 

 capital, but they lay down the principle that it is the 

 duty of Government officers to create and stimulate 

 such a demand. The first of their recommendations 

 runs as follows : 



1 Although there are defects in the takavi system to 

 which we shall advert below, and improvements to be 

 made, yet perhaps the first and the principal measure 

 required is to quicken the interest of all classes of 

 revenue officers in takavi work, to place liberal allot- 

 ments at their disposal, and to inquire strictly into the 

 causes of failure to spend up to them.' 



It is certainly a new doctrine that an officer should 

 be exposed to reprimand for having failed to persuade 

 the cultivators in his district to accept a loan from the 

 State ; and the older generation of civilians, who were 

 saturated with the economics of the individualists, 

 would have been scandalized at the proposal. But in 

 our day we have had many proofs of the inadequacy 

 of laissez /aire as a guide to economic legislation, 

 and we have now no prepossessions against State 

 assistance to private enterprise if it can be given in a 

 form which has been proved to work well. This can 

 be proved with regard to loans for agricultural im- 

 provements. As the money advanced to the cultivator 

 is, in an overwhelming majority of cases, faithfully 

 repaid, these loans neither impoverish the State nor 

 demoralize the cultivator. The Irrigation Commis- 

 sioners were much impressed with ' the general 

 integrity of takavi borrowers,' and they declare that 

 ' at present the amounts found to be irrecoverable are 

 inappreciable.' All their proposals, therefore, are 



